System keeps crashing.

Hope someone can help.

I have a firebat mini PC, specs are intel N100, 16gb ram. 512gn ssd. This is the PC HERE

I've installed OMV directly on the internal SSD. I have three hard drives attached via USB in a terramaster enclosure (the enclosure is new, but the issue was present with the previous enclosure) containing my media which I use as a kodi server.

The issue is the system crashes every few days, it will be working fine then just become completely unresponsive, I can't access the web GUI, and have to physically turn the pc off then on again. I did a clean instal on Sunday and it's crashed today.

I'm new to linux, so have absolutely no idea how to diagnose the issue and sort it. So, please speak to me like I'm five when it comes to diagnostics.

Any help is really appreciated,

Thanks.

Quote from BernH

The actual diagnostics I may have to defer to someone else on if it gets too deep, but given the unresponsive nature, I guess there are some questions that will need to be answered by you and also you will have to get comfortable with ssh and terminal to see what is happening.

I guess the first question is how are the drives set up? (Filesystem used? Is the external enclosure a raid box or are the drives seen independently?)

Second, are you able to ssh onto the box when it becomes unresponsive? If so, running some CLI utilities like top, htop, bpytop, etc. may help diagnose the issue.

Third, if you unmount the drives, does the system still become unresponsive after a while? This may help answer the question of if it’s something with omv and the box itself or the drive enclosure. The easiest way to unmount if you are not comfortable with the CLI would be to shut down and power off/disconnect the external drives.

Parsing the Linux logs is not my strong point but even so, you will probably also want to take note of a day and time when it becomes unresponsive to assist anyone wanting to see the logs to avoid wading through large amounts of text to find something.

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Thanks for the reply.

The drives are set up as separate drives. Not raid just JBOD. I have just replaced one of the drives as it was showing as ‘bad’ under smart so I thought maybe it was the drive causing the issue but everything now shows as ‘good’ in smart and it crashed again. And they’re using NTFS as I need to be able to access them and transfer stuff with my windows PC.

There’s two 8tb mechanical drives which contain media and a 1tb ssd which is used to backup phone pics etc.

I’ve not tried to ssh to the system when it’s crashed. As I tend to realise it’s crashed when someone is trying to watch something so I’ve just rebooted as soon as I’ve noticed it’s unresponsive. I previously had a different external enclosure but bought a larger one with more bays to be able to add more storage if needed in future. So it’s occurred with two different enclosures.

I could unplug the drives but as I can’t replicate the issue I’d basically have to wait days/weeks for it to crash again (if it does) and I don’t really want the server offline for days at a time. 🕰️

Quote from BernH

NTFS may be part of the problem depending on what is actually causing the unresponsiveness. Linux applications usually require the ability the use linux ownership and permissions, but ntfs does not give that ability. That inability to access the storage correctly may be causing something to error. This has repeatedly been an issue lately in the forums as newer users that are not familiar with linux have been trying to use NTFS and then things stop working correctly on the server. While linux can read/write ntfs, it should not be used for normal application access for those ownership/permissions reasons.

I would first recommend that you use a linux filesystem. If you need to transfer files to/from the drives with window, you can do it over the network via a samba share. If you insist on being able to direct attach the drives to windows, you can use wsl2 in windows to mount the linux filesystem or, if the filesystem is Ext2/3/4, as a simpler option for the less cli savvy, install something like Paragon's Linux Filesystem for Windows package, or use an ntfs "sneaker net" drive that shuttles back and forth as a copy to/from drive.

https://learn.microsoft.com/en…ndows/wsl/wsl2-mount-disk

https://www.paragon-software.com/home/linuxfs-windows/

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Thanks for the reply.

I don’t have enough space on my pc to back up the drives to reformat them with a Linux file system. I’m not opposed to it but it isn’t something I want to do unless there’s a way to tell if that’s what’s causing the issue because I’d have to order a drive large enough then spend days backing the drives up and putting everything back on them. Is there a way to tell if that’s what’s causing the issue or would it be a case of doing it and seeing? Because I’d be absolutely fuming if I did all that and it still crashed 😂.

I did try a formatting a small ssd in ext4 but I couldn’t access it via the windows network. Which I need to be able to do as I don’t want to switch my PC’s os to Linux or have to take the drives out the enclosure and attach them to the pc every time I want to add a file. I need the drives to be available on the windows network. I’m not worried about directly attaching the drives to the pc. I’d prefer not to have to do that.

I do already have software installed on my pc that lets me access drives formatted in ext4. I just can’t remember what it’s called right now.

Quote from BernH

The only way I can think of to see what the problem (aside from "log diving"), is to get into the system via ssh or local console when it is having a problem and do some cli monitoring as I suggested, and look for any programs that are using massive amounts of RAM or CPU to isolate it to a particular service. If the system is really hung (as I would think it is if you can't see the OMV GUI), it may not even be able to do any logging. That is assuming your OS drive is not full, but if it was, a reboot would not fix the problem.

As for accessing a linux drive over the network, that is exactly what a NAS is all about (Network Attached Storage). You simply create a shared folder in OMV, on the shared folder permissions tab give R/W access to it for a user created in OMV, add that shared folder to the samba server plugin, and then access it from your windows explorer with \\<OMV ip address> in the address bar, and log in with the user credentials you created in OMV.

If you windows version is new (ie. 10 or 11), you shouldn't need to do anything more, but there are some tweaks that can be done if the system is older or you need any "special" things done with the file's ownership or permissions.

Trying to use NTFS drives as a samba share from linux will not work because of the lack of ownership and permissions. Likewise, most other plugins that you can enable in OMV will also have the same problem. To that end, regardless of if you are resistant to migrating the data to linux filesystems, if you want OMV to work correctly, you are going to have to at some point.

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I'm not reluctant to change the drives to a linux file system, What I'm reluctant about is shell out £130 for another 8tb drive then spending days of my life backing up the drives and restoring the data on them when I've no idea if that will actually fix the issue I'm having. But the catch 22 is I won't know if it'll fix the issue unless I do it.

The data on the drives isn't important as such, which is why it's not backed up already. but a few tb of media files is a pain to rip/download again if lost

Probably best if I just install windows on the minipc and use smb. Thanks for the input, it really is appreciated.

Quote from BernH

Do you know someone you could borrow a drive from or even a few smaller ones that they are not using anymore? You would only need to clean off on drive so it could be reformatted, and then use that to move the contents of the next drive onto, then at the end when you have one drive left to convert, you copy the files back off the borrowed drive.

Alternately, from what I have read it is possible to convert NTFS to Ext4 in place using Minitool partition Wizard. I have not tried this myself so I can't swear to it, so it might be worth trying on a drive that has some test media on it,

https://www.partitionwizard.co…convert-ntfs-to-ext4.html

The required version is not free though

It seems AOMEI partition Assistant may be able to do it too.

https://www.diskpart.com/artic…rt-ntfs-to-ext4-0310.html

This article does not mention saving the data though.

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I have several small drives, I could use, I could also wipe the 1tb drive as that's also backed up elsewhere. It's just the larger mechanical drives I'm reluctant to wipe without knowing if that's even the issue.

Off to investigate the programs now to see if I can convert without losing data.

Quote from BernH

Do you know someone you could borrow a drive from or even a few smaller ones that they are not using anymore? You would only need to clean off on drive so it could be reformatted, and then use that to move the contents of the next drive onto, then at the end when you have one drive left to convert, you copy the files back off the borrowed drive.

Alternately, from what I have read it is possible to convert NTFS to Ext4 in place using Minitool partition Wizard. I have not tried this myself so I can't swear to it, so it might be worth trying on a drive that has some test media on it,

https://www.partitionwizard.co…convert-ntfs-to-ext4.html

The required version is not free though

It seems AOMEI partition Assistant may be able to do it too.

https://www.diskpart.com/artic…rt-ntfs-to-ext4-0310.html

This article does not mention saving the data though.

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I’m also reluctant because if that’s not the issue I’d then need to reverse everything as I’d more than likely just install windows at that point.

Quote from chente

If I didn't have a backup of all my data, I wouldn't think about it, I would spend that money to have a backup. But the decision about whether that data is important to you is yours alone.

Reading everything you have published, the most sensible decision could be to forget OMV, install Windows server and hope that one of your hard drives never breaks. Good luck with that.

Edit: I think I should clarify that I am sure that some hard drive will break at some point and the data will be lost, so the most sensible thing to do is actually create a backup on an EXT4 drive and configure OMV instead of that operating system so dark fruit of the capitalist system in which we live and that should die between screams of agony and pain

It’s media files. It’s not important as in the way photos and personal files are. I have data I deem important backed up in three separate places. I’m also well aware hard drives can fail at any time, as one of the media drives did fail three days ago.

But I’ve just spent £150 on an enclosure and £130 on a replacement drive so when finances allow I will buy a drive to back up my media (which I would have done had I not needed to buy a replacement drive). I just can’t afford to do that this minute.

And again I don’t object to changing the file systems of the drive I just don’t want to so that again when I don’t know if that’s actually causing the issue. If there was a way to tell yep that’s the problem I’d do it. But there isn’t and it’s a lot of effort and money for a possible fix.

Quote from BernH

I can guarantee you that using NTFS as the main storage drive on a linux system is a problem (not just OMV). That has been proven time and time again. I cant tell you if it is the cause of you problem for sure. It could be the system itself. I tried one of those off-brand chinese systems many years ago and it was problematic with spontaneous reboots and lock ups, no matter what I tried to fix it.

The firebat was £80. I took a punt. I’m not unhappy with it cos I can use it for emulation if this doesn’t work out.

I’m gonna use windows till I can afford a backup drive then convert to ext4 and try OMV again.

Quote from BernH

fair enough.

Okay, so I gave it some thought last night, and I'm going to convert the drives to ext4. Found a 3tb drive I can use to transfer stuff to etc. Really hope this works. I did almost install windows but it's so massive for what I need, and clunky etc.

But then I'll need to figure out how to view the drives in windows, how to connect them to tinymediamanager and kodi etc.

I’m using a Linux boot usb to format the drives. I assume that’s the best option when the system is windows. Just thought it would be easier than downloading a file on windows etc.

Quote from BernH

The easiest way to format the drives would be to use OMV. In the disk tab, wipe the drive, then in the filesystem tab, make a new filesystem and mount it.

As for the tiny media manager, once the drive samba shared and you connect to it in windows, it is jus a drive the software access, same for kodi, add the samba share as a library sours and it's good to go.

However, as you work through all of this, you might want to consider using something like sonarr and radarr on OMV with docker to manage your media files. They will look after getting all the metadata for the files and renaming them consistently. If you are torrenting the files, you can add a qbittorrent (it can also be st to use a vpn connection to download) and prowlarr containers that will tie in with them and it all becomes automatic. The *arr's manage and search, pass the search results to qbittorrent, when downloads are complete, it notifies them, at which point they pick the files up and import them to themselves and do the organizing.

just food for thought.

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I didn’t even think to use OMV. But they’re all formatted not. I’m just in the process of moving all the files back to the drives. I used a Ubuntu live usb. They’re all ext4 now.

Honestly, I don’t even want to think about docker. I have tried to install it before and I just can’t seem to get my head around it. I follow guides and end up with error codes so something that should take two minutes to install ends up with me spending three days googling trying to figure it out. Then once I got it installed I had no idea what to do with it or how it worked. When you’ve used windows for 30 years Linux is a steep leaning curve.

I’m happy with tinymediamanager. It works for me so until I feel a bit more confident with OMV I’ll stick with what work for me. I don’t torrent. I use usenet. I tend to grab the episode. Transfer it to the drive and then run tinymedia manager.

I swear if this doesn’t fix this issue I’m just gonna give up. Life’s too short (and I’m not smart enough).

Thanks again for the help. It is really appreciated.